Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Box II (retold)

Music blared with a strange quality which would have caught the ear of any music-lover. A static quality of its energy, something made the sounds them seem smaller, denser than music should be.

Sounds were blaring forth not from a band of musicians, as it would take to produce this blending of sounds, but from a single spot, atop a small pedestal, amid gilded stonework that focussed the sounds forward to their hearers.

The device or object that created the sounds was black. It seemed to buzz with energy, constantly streaming forth its noise, now voices, now music again. It was nondescript, black, boxy in shape and smooth, except for a strange panel of blockish designs, two protruding knobs and two screened portions on either side.

New eyes had new found this box, and seeing value in it, took the box, brought it to this place. It became an object of mystery and adoration, sitting above the small crowds of people who gathered in this grove before their shaman, their priest who tended the source of the voice from the sky, which long ages ago issued down to the earth and blessed with fortune all who would listen, like a holy oracle of pure kindness.

Long had the box been neglected, seen only by wild creatures, its voices unappreciated, its melodies unnoticed. It had been feared for magical power; was now adored for the same.

People ate before the box, many couples sat before a man who sang with the box, who mimicked well-practiced the cries that issued forth from it into the sweet air of spring. Moods danced high with it, fertility was in the air; fertility their purpose, this rite their very future hope.

Let blessing upon blessing issue forth from its unmoving unclosing mouth! The Shaman gave heart, soul, body to the effort of blessing each man-woman there, each of the hopeful parent of a long-awaited next generation.

Ecstasy took him when the funeral song of his dead father played, sweat poured from his body and he beckoned to each and every of his holy audience: move. Move! Mingling hands feet dancing to music incomprehensible to ears; his words gibbered forth without meaning, with a meaning not in the words but in the every sound, in the forming and the being of the sounds that his lungs bellowed into the now cool night air, howling full under the bright rising moon.

Spirits evil, beings mischievous fled before the blessed songs, fled before the rapturous racket of the feet, shaking bracelets, of song-dance-voice issuing into the endless dark above.

None there would fear the night now; that was the aim. Luck of the Divine, no fear of evil more, fear not the lack of prosperity: hope would guide to the next conception, the next miracle of birth, long expected still unseen.

Energies subsided. Song became voice. Whispers dodged the continual blare of the box, the eternal voice of unearthly wisdom, holy in its unceasingness, monumental in its solitude as it drowned out the silent night outside the grove.

Groups left: men then women then Shaman, tradition born of fear of night, fear for the women, carried out now with joy and enthusiasm; no thought entered no mind that danger was afoot, for none evil could stand against such power as now coursed through each individual, each feeling as half a being, eager only to return to earthen homes and reunite with other half in passion.

Sexual ecstasy awaited, static like electric, as had been hoped for by Elder and shaman alike; by man and woman alike; by hunter and gatherer alike; by craftsman and farmer alike.

But ere it returned to home, some of it found its way in the grove: full-breasted she intercepted Shaman, strong husband still virile awaiting, she pleasured first a spiritually potent man, dancing having aroused night-long desire.

Rapture found both there on the grass, union where bodies intersected, where he found his entrance, she her allowance, and both their relief and release.

Him collapsing, sweaty-backed on grass entranced by holiness; she left home and found the same rest, after more sweet union with her own man, undulled for being done in its proper place and guise, undulled for being second time.

Another shaman's son, bastard-born soon rose; praised was his true father for fertility rite, his mother only knowing the lie. His father-priest praised only the voices, sounds of the box, eternal flowing in wisdom and holiness on high.

The box, unchanging it blared on through all events, outlived without silence even its immaculately conceived son. The eternal chant of its wisdom did not die, though the many short-lived creatures did. Only stones accompanied this ascended god, its host of inanimate and steadfast angels.